He has five "jobs": let me brush his teeth, put his dirty clothes in the laundry, put his dirty dishes in the sink, put away his toys, and fold his arms for the whole prayer. These are reasonable expectations for our two and a half year old. He has done pretty well. He earns a star sticker for every time he does a job. Five of the star stickers equal one Qatari Riyal (QR), which is about 25 cents. There is one clipped to the top right corner of the chart. He likes doing his jobs and getting stickers. Reminding him of earning stars has helped him to do his jobs happily.
He has earned about 8 QR so far. I bring his money with us when we go to the store. There really isn't much to buy for under 10 QR, so he hasn't been able to buy anything. But it is liberating to say, "You don't have enough money for that toy. You need to save your money to buy it later." It helps in the moment, since I know he's not really going to be able to save his money to buy the 40QR remote control car he so desperately wants at that moment. I think you get how this works.
This last week we went to a mall here called City Center. There was a small toy store near the escalator down to the parking garage. On our way out he wanted to look at the toys. So we went in. I had no fear since he could only buy something if he had the money. He looked at several things. Some he just put back, but some he'd hold out to me and say, "buy it". I told him that he had 7 "monies" and he didn't have enough. But he did find something for 6QR. I told him he had enough for it if he wanted to buy it. He wanted it, so we counted out his money and he paid the man the money. The store clerk put his toy in the bag with the receipt. George was happy. I was happy.
